Posted on 10/18/2005 9:31:08 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
The Harrisburg courtroom was packed yesterday with reporters and members of the public who came to see the second half of Dover's intelligent design trial.
The defense began presenting its case by calling its star witness -- Lehigh University professor, biochemist and top intelligent design scientist Michael Behe.
Thomas More Law Center attorney Robert Muise started the questioning in a simple format, asking, for example, if Behe had an opinion about whether intelligent design is creationism. Then he asked Behe to explain why.
Behe said intelligent design is not creationism, but
a scientific theory that makes scientific claims that can be tested for accuracy.
Behe testified that intelligent designdoesn't require a supernatural creator, but an intelligent designer: it does not name the designer.
He said evolution is not a fact and there are gaps in the theory that can be explained by intelligent design.
There is evidence that some living things were purposefully arranged by a designer, Behe claimed in his testimony.
Gave examples: One example is the bacterial flagellum, the tail of a bacteria that quickly rotates like an outboard motor, he said.
The bacterial flagellum could not have slowly evolved piece by piece as Charles Darwin posited because if even one part of the bacteria is removed, it no longer serves its original function, Behe said.
Biologist and Brown University professor Kenneth Miller testified for the parents about two weeks ago. He showed the courtroom diagrams on a large screen, detailing how the bacterial flagellum could be reduced and still work.
Also showing diagrams, Behe said Miller was mistaken and used much of his testimony in an attempt to debunk Miller's testimony.
Miller was wrong when he said that intelligent design proponents don't have evidence to support intelligent design so they degrade the theory of evolution, Behe said.
But Behe also said evolution fails to answer questions about the transcription on DNA, the "structure and function of ribosomes," new protein interactions and the human immune system, among others.
By late in the afternoon, Behe was supporting his arguments with complex, detailed charts, at one point citing a scientific article titled "The Evolved Galactosidase System as a Model for Studying Acquisitive Evolution in the Laboratory."
Most of the pens in the jury box -- where the media is stationed in the absence of a jury -- stopped moving. Some members of the public had quizzical expressions on their faces.
One of the parents' attorneys made mention of the in-depth subject matter, causing Muise to draw reference to Miller's earlier testimony.
He said the courtroom went from "Biology 101" to "Advanced Biology."
"This is what you get," Muise said.
Board responds: Randy Tomasacci, a schoolboard member with a Luzerne County school district, said he was impressed with Behe's testimony.
Tomasacci represents Northwest Area School District in Shickshinny, a board that is watching the Dover trial and is contemplating adopting an intelligent design policy.
"We're going to see what happens in this case," he said.
Some of his fellow board members are afraid of getting sued, Tomasacci said.
Tomasacci's friend, Lynn Appleman, said he supports Dover's school board.
He said he thought Behe was "doing a good job" during testimony, but "it can get over my head pretty quick."
Former professor Gene Chavez, a Harrisburg resident, said he came to watch part of the proceedings because the case is "monumental."
He said he had doubts about the effectiveness of Behe's testimony.
"I think he's going to have a hard time supporting what he has concluded," Chavez said. "I think he is using his science background to make a religious leap because it's what he believes."
"How many times do I have to say that ID seriously questions the merits of evolution because life at exists today simply cannot be the result of random chance."
Why, yes, yes it does. The defendant is on trial, not the plaintiff.
But ... but ... why are there still monkeys?
</troll mode>
Depends on the attorney. A good one will take the most well-prepared and intelligent expert witness and cut his throat, and the witness won't even know it. In fact, in my experience, the smarter the witness, the more susceptible he is to falling victim to the attorney.
"DON'T FEED THE GOON-SQUAD TROLLS!"
Very difficult to feed trolls. According to trusted sources, trolls became extinct 173 BCE. The last troll lived near Trondheim, Norway, under a low bridge, and was killed by Ole Svenson, who used a cudgel to break its neck. He then made a drinking cup of its skull and enjoyed drinking mead from it until he died of old age. The skull was lost, but may have been transported to the USA in an immigrant's chest sometime in the 1950s. I am searching for it now.
I did say a well prepared expert witness.
Evolution is not on trial here. Anyone who claims otherwise lacks the understanding of what precise legal issue is before the court. The question is whether the ID-announcement rule is an establishement of religion. It either is or it is not. That fact is simply not dependant on the fact of whether evolution is true or not. It must either be or not be an establishment based on its own merits.
The ACLU has slick attorneys. And there's an enormous body of material out there which makes Behe look silly. Example: Is It Science Yet? Intelligent Design Creationism & the Constitution, Washington Univ. Law Quarterly. (That's a 149-page pdf file, and it's dynamite.) Armed with that kind of material, a good trial lawyer can make Behe look like an idiot.
Ah, but the defense admits it is a fact.
My book concentrates entirely on Darwin's mechanism, and simply takes for granted common descent. Behe
Somewhere, over the rainbow, the Raelians are cheering.
You mean all the kids would be issued Barbie and Ken dolls that say "Science is so hard"?
Underlines mine
You appear to be under the misapprehension that the blood clotting cascade is a metabolic pathway, or suffering under some other confusion.
We understand and believe you...except, and this is a big one, the effort behind the insertion of ID into the education system is claiming that ID has nothing to do with the supernatural. However if you separate the possible causes in two camps, those that occur naturally such as evolution and those that do not occur naturally the natural causes can be rendered down to non-intelligent designers. This leaves only the non-natural causes. (Remember we are dealing with something that can directly manipulate features on Earth organisms, poke around in DNA sequences and the like)
If you posit aliens as non-natural causes as ID is wont to do, then the options for their existence are - they were created by natural processes, they were created by non-natural causes or they created themselves.
We can dismiss the first point out of hand because that is what ID is trying to disprove. The second point just brings us back to the same question - how were the aliens that created the aliens that created us created? Eventually you have to stop the circle of aliens creating aliens and move on to something that created itself. (You can't use the argument that they have always existed because that could also be applied to natural causes). If some alien race was able to create itself, I would say they have pretty much the same capabilities as the supernatural supposedly does. All in all it looks like ID can be boiled down to supernatural causes.
It's always been a miracle to me that the art police don't come and tear thos ethings down and burn 'em.
I don't care how well-prepared he is. The attorney, if he's good, will not only assume the witness is prepared, but plan on it. But, at the end of the day, he's a layperson and will fall into layperson traps. They all do.
But ... but ... it's science! It's gotta be science! It's science!!!! [Scream, rant, pound table, sob, faint]
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